It has been a long time since I posted on this forum and I unfortunately return with some very sad news. Many here may remember the name Clint Nickerson, a veteran Canadian broadcaster who was born in Vancouver and cut his teeth there, before making a very successful move to Toronto in the 70s.

I was sorry to hear that Clint passed away quite suddenly from lung cancer on Saturday. He was 66 and had apparently only been diagnosed with the disease just a month or so before his passing.

Clint worked out west for many years before getting the opportunity to move to Toronto, where he spent two different go-rounds at CFTR during its Top 40 days, coming back the second time to be the producer of "Sunday Sunday," the very first nationally syndicated news documentary show ever attempted in private radio in Canada. It lasted only a year because it was simply too expensive to produce, but its ratings were good and it was a pioneering effort at the time. He later spent time at CJCL-AM as its P.D., before returning to another former stomping ground, Citytv in Toronto, where he worked for a few decades as the main news producer on what was then known as "CityPulse Tonight."

In later years, he moved back to the west coast, this time Victoria, where he was in upper management at what is now CIVI-TV. He kept his hand in the biz after retiring a few years ago, operating the board at one of the Rogers stations in town. But his main love, besides his terrific wife Alisa, was golf and you could find him playing it any day the weather cooperated. He once told me he considered Victoria and the west coast to be "paradise" and he was happy to be back there.

He was a mentor to me in my career and our paths seemed to cross many, many times. But it appears he did that for a lot of people and I always made sure to tell him how much that was appreciated. His funeral will be private but there will likely be a celebration of his life at some point in the near future. As lives go, it was a pretty good one, if sadly way, way too short.

I think it could be that Clint was gone from the B.C. scene for a long time and perhaps he's more remembered in the Toronto market than Vancouver. But he sure made an impression on me. I owe my career to the man twice over and I am very glad I let him know it every time we talked.

I did not know Clint...but anyone involved with the amazing aural experiment that was CKVN has my gratitude.

It emerged from the debris of a failed all-talk format at CKVN 1410 which was the renamed CFUN. (I think station ownership swapped call letters with a Quebec station that later made a small fortune by selling them back.) While it lasted, rock VN was something else. Terry Mulligan helmed a roster of veteran jocks (such as the late Hal Weaver). If memory serves, there were more unconventional voices such as comic genius Bill Reiter and actor Don Francks.

As for the playlist, where else on the AM dial could you hear the likes of Oh Well ( Fleetwod Mac), the extended version of No Sugar Tonight (Guess Who) and, I think, the original pre-Raiders version of Indian Reservation (Don Fardon). I didn't have the patience for the rambling, deep-voiced, 20-minute-album-track format of LG FM. So CKVN hit the spot.

Thanks Clint for being part of that team and your subsequent achievements in Toronto and back here in Victoria.

It was a pleasure to work however briefly with Clint at CKDA in Victoria in the early seventies. He had a smile and an attitude that would light up the room. Clint probably was the only member of the news team who looked good in those golden blazers we had to wear in public. Our paths crossed again in Toronto when he was making a name for himself at CFTR and I was a rookie at CHUM. Another good guy gone too soon.

Clint Nickerson, a veteran journalist and broadcaster who helped launch what is now CTV News Vancouver Island, had two passions in life: news and golf. He pursued both to the fullest until his death on Saturday, following a brief battle with lung cancer.

He was 65.

Nickerson, a Victoria native, spent his professional career in the news departments of radio and television stations across the country, primarily in Ontario.

His proudest achievement was bringing the CHUM network of Toronto to Vancouver Island in 2001, shepherding to air Victoria’s first new television station since 1956, The New VI.

His legacy lives on in the same Broad Street building that houses what is today CTV News Vancouver Island.

Nickerson, as news director, hired many of the station’s first employees, including Heather Kim, who began her career under Nickerson as a news copy writer and is now the station’s news director.

“We might not be here if it wasn’t for Clint,” Kim said. “Being from Victoria, he lobbied to CHUM to open the station here … and he lobbied hard. That was his dream — to come back and open a station in his hometown. If Clint hadn’t done that, who knows what this building would be right now. I really do believe that.”

Nickerson shifted gears in 2004, following his departure from the station, and entered semi-retirement. He became more deeply involved with the Victoria Golf Club, where he served as a board member for several terms and club president until eight weeks ago.

“He’s been on every committee and donated more time than any other member that I can think of over the last 30 years,” said Scott Kolb, general manager of the Victoria Golf Club.

Nickerson was due to receive a lifetime membership from the club during an event in August, a gesture he was profoundly moved by before his death, Kolb said.

“That’s not just something we hand out. There’s only four current members that have the same membership, because it’s only given when somebody has done something truly exceptional at the golf club. It’s a 125-year-old club, so that’s saying a lot.”

It was especially meaningful for Nickerson, given that his roots with the club date to the 1960s. “He didn’t come from an affluent family by any means, but he was a caddie here for a few years as a teenager,” Kolb said. “At the end of the summer one year, the member he caddied for dropped off an envelope and in it was a junior membership. That changed his heart. The second he came back [in 2001] to start up the station, he joined again right away.”

He became heavily involved with the Evans Caddie Scholarship, a fund that sends youth caddies on four-year scholarships to U.S. schools. “Because of his background, he was very passionate about that,” Kolb said. “He was still doing it right up until the end.”

Clint Nickerson, 66, in Victoria of lung cancer. Nickerson got his start in broadcasting in the early 1970s at CJVI-AM Victoria. He moved on to CKDA-AM Victoria and CFUN-AM Vancouver before heading to Toronto in the mid-70s where he anchored news at CFTR-AM and then moved into television. He returned to CFTR to produce weekly public affairs show Sunday Sunday, then CJCL-AM, before going back to CityTV where he was the longtime senior news producer of City Pulse. In 2000, he left to become news director at CIVI-TV Victoria.